Tape winding machines are well known in the art. Such devices are generally used to transfer magnetic recording tape from the large supply reels typically prepared during tape manufacture to the smaller reels or cassettes generally utilized by commercially-available recording and playback equipment. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,637,153, 3,814,343, 3,940,080, 3,964,100, 3,997,123, 3,917,184, 4,061,286, 3,753,834, and 4,438,468.
Where the fresh tape is to be loaded into empty (i.e., C-ZERO) cassettes, it is sometimes desirable to provide the tape winding machine with a cassette storage and feeder mechanism for storing a plurality of empty cassettes and supplying them one at a time to a loading station on the tape winding machine. The use of such a cassette storage and feeder mechanism is advantageous since it allows the tape winding machine to be set up to run for prolonged periods of time with minimal operator supervision.
In their simplest (and earliest) forms, cassette storage and feeder mechanisms have generally comprised (a) a storage magazine in the form of a vertical storage chute having a rectangular cross-section sized so as to slidably constrain a plurality of cassettes stacked one on top of another, and (b) feeder means for removing the cassettes one at a time from the bottom end of the chute and delivering them to the loading station on the tape winding machine. In these simple cassette storage and feeder mechanisms, the cassettes are generally loaded into the top end of the storage chute by hand, conveyed to the bottom end of the chute by gravity, and thereafter transported to the tape winding machine's loading station via automatic feeder means. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,814,343, 3,940,080, 3,964,100, 3,997,123, 4,061,286, and 4,438,468.
Unfortunately, one problem which has been encountered with the simple cassette storage and feeder mechanisms described above is that of "open end" cassette orientation. More particularly, the empty cassettes which are to be filled with tape must all be received at the loading station of the tape winding machine with a specific orientation if the winding machine is to fill the cassettes with tape, i.e., the cassettes must be oriented in such a way that the end of the cassette which exposes the cassette's leader tape (the "open end" of the cassette) is oriented towards the winding machine's leader extractor mechanism. In this regard, it is to be appreciated further that most audio tape cassettes are of the type shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,078,698 and 4,271,955, i.e., they have a stepped configuration and are thicker at their open ends than at their closed ends. As a result, the empty cassettes are generally packaged in their shipping cartons with an alternating open end orientation so that they pack evenly and efficiently. Hence, it is not feasible to simply transfer the cassettes from their shipping cartons to the vertical storage chute of the aforementioned storage and feeder mechanisms, without adjusting the orientation of approximately half of the cassettes, since this would result in approximately half of the cassettes being fed to the winding machine's loading station with their open ends being incorrectly oriented.
Initially, and to some extent even now, the problem was solved by having the winding machine's operator load all of the empty audio cassettes into the storage chute with the same orientation, i.e., so that all of the cassettes advance to the bottom end of the storage chute with their open ends facing in the desired direction. Such uniform cassette orientation at the bottom end of the storage chute then allows the cassettes to be quickly and easily advanced to the winding machine's loading station with the proper open end orientation for loading.
Unfortunately, this "brute force" solution to the cassette orientation problem suffers from a number of disadvantages. First, it mandates increased operator attendance at each machine. This is undesirable since production costs are thereby raised and productivity is thereby reduced. Second, by leaving the task of proper cassette orientation to a fallible human operator, the risk is increased that a cassette will be fed to the tape winding machine with an incorrect open end orientation. This is undesirable since the consequences of feeding an incorrectly oriented cassette to the tape winding machine are that the tape winding machine must then be deactivated long enough to remove the improperly oriented cassette.
A more elegant solution to the problem of audio cassette orientation is offered in U.S. Pat. No. 4,078,698. This patent teaches the idea of modifying the structure of the aforementioned cassette storage and feeder mechanisms so that a vertical orientation chute is interposed between the bottom end of the storage chute and the feeder means leading to the loading station on the tape winding machine. This orientation chute includes a sensing station at its top end where photoelectric sensors determine the orientation of the cassette as it is received into the orientation chute, and a "pivoting fin" mechanism disposed intermediate the length of the orientation chute which can be adjusted to selectively deflect a cassette falling in the chute so that the cassette will always arrive at the bottom end of the chute with its open end facing in a predetermined direction. The use of the cassette storage and feeder mechanism of U.S. Pat. No. 4,078,698 is advantageous since it allows cassettes to be quickly and easily loaded into the top end of the storage chute with substantially "random" (i.e., non-uniform) open end orientation, yet assures that the cassettes will still arrive at the winding machine's loading station with the requisite uniform open end orientation.
Unfortunately, the cassette storage and feeder mechanism disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,078,698 is believed to suffer from several disadvantages. More particularly, because the cassette storage and feeder mechanism requires that the cassettes "free fall" in an orientation chute and be physically deflected by a pivoting fin mechanism as they fall in order for proper cassette orientation to be achieved, there exists the possibility that the cassettes may be damaged as they fall, either from striking the pivoting fin mechanism or from striking objects at the bottom end of the orientation chute. There also exists the possibility that the pivoting fin mechanism will fail during use. Furthermore, the cassette storage and feeder mechanism disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,078,698 tends to be bulky.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,955 offers an alternative solution to the problem of audio cassette orientation. This reference also uses a vertical orientation chute, interposed between the bottom end of the storage chute and the feeder means leading to the loading station on the tape winding machine, to effect proper cassette orientation. The orientation chute of U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,955 effects uniform open end orientation of the cassettes through the use of first, second and third bars disposed about an opening at the top end of the orientation chute. These bars are arranged so that they extend substantially parallel to the path of movement of a cassette as it enters the chute, with the first and second bars being disposed on one side of the chute and vertically spaced from one another so as to define a horizontal channel therebetween which can accommodate the thinner closed end of a cassette but not the thicker open end of a cassette, and with the third bar being disposed on the opposite side of the chute at a vertical position corresponding to the vertical position of the lower of the first and second bars. In addition to the foregoing, the bars are arranged so that a cassette entering the chute will initially contact the first and second bars, but not the third bar. The bars cooperate with one another so that (1) when a cassette enters the orientation chute disposed so that its thinner closed end faces the first and second bars, the thinner end of the cassette will enter the aforementioned horizontal channel and the thicker open end of the cassette will not be supported by the third bar, so that the cassette will fall down the chute with its thicker open end in leading position, and (2) when a cassette enters the orientation chute disposed so that its open end faces the first and second bars, the thicker open end of the cassette will not enter the horizontal channel and the cassette will instead be shifted laterally by contact of the cassette with the first and second bars so that the cassette's thinner closed end rides along the top surface of the third bar, whereby the thicker open end of the cassette will be unsupported by the first and second bars and the cassette will fall down the chute, again with its thicker open end facing downwards.
Unfortunately, while the orientation chute taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,955 is known to work, it also suffers from the possibility that cassettes may be damaged as they free fall to the bottom end of the orientation chute. In addition, the mechanism suffers from the further disadvantage that it tends to occupy a substantial amount of space.
The cassette storage and feeder mechanisms described and illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,078,698 and 4,271,955 also suffer from another serious deficiency not previously noted. More particularly, the empty tape cassettes are frequently formed so that their front and back sides (i.e., their front and back principal face surfaces) are dissimilar from one another. For example, many empty tape cassettes have information displayed on one or both of their front and back sides. This information may be molded directly into the plastic of the cassette, or it may be printed onto the plastic of the cassette or onto labels affixed to the cassette. In any case, this information frequently differs from one side of the cassette to the other. Also, many empty cassettes are fastened together with screws which extend from one side of the cassette to the other. All of these screws typically extend in the same direction, so that one side of the cassette generally exposes the heads of the screws while the other side generally exposes the toes of the screws.
During manufacture, the empty cassettes are typically packaged in their shipping cartons not only so that their open ends are disposed with an alternating orientation as noted above, but also so that their front and back surfaces are uniformly oriented relative to one another (i.e., so that the front sides of the cassettes all face in a first direction, while the back sides of the cassettes all face in an opposite, second direction). In many circumstances (e.g. when loading prerecorded music into already labelled cassettes) it is essential that the empty cassettes be fed to the tape winding machine with this uniform front/back cassette orientation remaining intact, so that the tape will be properly loaded into the cassettes. Unfortunately, while it is a relatively simple matter to transfer the empty cassettes from their shipping cartons to the storage chute so that the cassettes' uniform front/back orientation is maintained, cassette storage and feeder mechanisms such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,078,698 and 4,271,955 tend to disrupt this uniform front/back orientation of the cassettes as they work to effect uniform open end orientation of the cassettes. Accordingly, the empty cassettes arrive at the loading station of the tape winding machine with uniform open end orientation but non-uniform front/back orientation. This is unacceptable in many applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,438,468 shows still another cassette storage and feeder mechanism. However, this mechanism is generally not preferred because of its mechanical complexity.